China’s Six Major Forestry Projects
The State Forestry Administration published on August 5, 2004 a statistic bulletin on the six major forestry projects implemented in 2003. According to the data provided by the bulletin, 2003 saw a total of 8.2628 million hectares of afforestation completed by 6 major forestry projects. The data marks an increase of 21.92%, compared with 2002, or 90.61% of the nation’s total afforested area in the same year.
The natural forest resources protection project runs smoothly. In 2003, 688,300 hectares of land were afforested, with 613,900 hectares newly closed for tree growing, and 87.8922 million hectares under protection. The timber industry has produced an output of 9.2347 million m3, or 22.8193 million m3 less than 32.054 million m3 recorded in 1997, landed a drop of 71.19%. Since the implementation of the project, 275,800 laid-off staff have been reemployed by other industries on a combined basis.
The reclamation project has reclaimed 6.8409 million hectares of previously forested land and 196,900 hectares of previous pastureland from illegal land use, or a respective increase by 49.62% and 30.31%, compared with 2002. 18.85 million farm households have been benefited from the land reclamation efforts.
Beijing-Tianjin sand control project has seen remarkable progresses. In the year, 952,000 hectares of mountains or sand fields were sealed for tree growing, and 152,200 hectares of grassland placed under control or protection. In addition, 57,600 hectares of land experienced limited basin control efforts, and 5,380 supporting hydraulic projects were completed. The ecological immigrant population accounted for 22,200 in number.
“Three Norths” and Yangtze River forest break projects have completed an afforestation of 275,300 hectares in total, or 9.64% up compared with 2002.
In the context of wild life and plants protection and nature conservations, the year saw an addition of nature conservation parks by 133, and newly protected areas by 9 million hectares.
The fast growing timber project have led to an increase of tree planting by 59,096 hectares, and 10,668 hectares of low quality timber forests were changed for fine quality, or 3.94% more than 2002.
Three Major S&T Programs for Senior Technicians
The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology has been working on a project, requesting three major national programs, namely the National Innovation Fund, the National Torch Program, and National Priority New Products Program, to give a weighted support to training more electric technicians at an advanced level. In an attempt to take advantage of preferential policies regulated for S&T, education, labor and social security sectors, the new project is striving to guide industries, vocational schools, and productivity promotion centers to create public platforms for training electric technicians at an advanced level. With high tech products as the hardware, the project has accelerated the process to train more senior technicians that are urgently needed by Chinese manufacturing and information industries.
Starting from 2002, the project has gathered 163 vocational schools and 156 enterprises in 31 provinces, autonomous regions or cosmopolitan cities to construct public platforms for training electric technicians at an advanced level. So far 124 platforms have been put into operation. In the last couple of years, those platforms had provided trainings for 38,000 employees/time, and fed to industries some 12,000 electric technicians, alleviated industries’ urgent needs for such talents.
Probe II Works Well
At a news briefing held on August 11, 2004, SUN Laiyan, Chinese Administrator of Space said China’s Probe II satellite has begun to test 7 of its 8 onboard payloads, and the last payload would be tested in coming days. Probe II has so far completed its orbiting attitude tuning, working arm stretching, nutation control and timing, with all its onboard instruments working smoothly under a stable attitude. If everything goes smoothly, the orbiting payload testing will be completed in 2 months, before the satellite is delivered to its users.
SUN said the satellite Probe I has worked properly since its delivery to users on April 12, 2004. Onboard instruments have collected abundant observational data. Chinese scientists are currently analyzing the data collected by Probe I, comparing notes with the data collected by ESA’s four satellites, and obtained some new findings. According to SUN, the dual satellite project has added new experiences to China’s space technologies, including technical breakthroughs in surface equipotentials, low surplus magnetism, and resistance to high space radiation. In addition, the successful development of a new solid surface level for the carrier rocket has extended the satellite control range to nearly 80,000 km.
SUN added that the success of dual satellite project would facilitate China’s moon probe program and other space observation projects. China plans to realize before 2007 a number of space initiatives, including moon orbiting, moon soil depth and elements measuring, and understanding the space environment between earth and moon. These endeavors require a satellite control range of 380,000 km. Communications at such a long distance will impose many difficulties in data sending and programmed control. Probe II, one of the dual satellites, offers a maximum control range at 78,000 km, which provide experience for future remote control efforts. In addition, the dual satellite project will study the magnetic fields and storms between earth and space, so as to make the moon probe satellite shun away from possible impacts.
China’s Life Ethics Theory Attracts International Attention
The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, an international authoritative publication on ethics, has recently published the “Ethics Criteria for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research”, a draft document prepared by the China National Genome Research Center (South). The development makes the first instance of China’s life ethics findings in a world-class journal.
To make the ethics of China’s human embryonic stem cell study in line with international norms, an investigation team under the China National Genome Research Center (South) has collected comments and views from 250 medical researchers in 8 class-III hospitals in Shanghai, Xi’an and other places. Based on authoritative literatures, such as declarations, statements and outlines published by UNESCO, WHO and International Human Genome Organization, the investigation team worked out the “Ethics Criteria for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research”, a draft proposal tailored to China’s own situation. The journal of Nature made an appreciative comment on the draft, when it was released in the journal of China Medical Ethics.
The draft proposal outlines its basic stands as follows: it supports human embryo stem cell study. In view of potential ethics conflicts, strict ethic rules have to be observed. It, therefore, firmly opposes reproductive cloning, or cloning of individual humans. It stipulates that external blastula cultivation shall not exceed 14 days. Blastula shall not be planted into human uterus or any other animals’ uterus. Human-animal cell combination technique can be used only in basic research, and its products are prohibited for clinic applications. The collection and utilization of the materials to be studied shall follow the principle of voluntary, being well informed of, and not for commercial purpose. And such study shall, from the approval of establishing the project to reaching its findings, be placed under ethic evaluations and control.
Super Rice Refreshes World Record
II Youhang 1, a space-bred super rice developed by XIE Hua’an, President of Fujian Provincial Academy of Agriculture Sciences, has produced a world record per mu(1mu=0.0667ha.) yield of 928.3 kg. The announcement was made at an on-the-scene verification check recently organized in Youxi County, Fujian Province.
II Youhang 1 is a combination hybrid, selected from three mutated space-bred rice species grown in different ecological areas, including Fuzhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Sanya. The testing results, produced by the Rice and Related Products Quality Control Center, a part of the Ministry of Agriculture, show that the new hybrid combination characterizes a fine quality and high yield. Its five major indicators, including fine grain rate, whole grain rate, amylose, and protein, reach the top standards defined by the national criteria. Expert panel made an on-the-spot investigation of 101.1 mu of II Youhang 1, grown over a demonstration site in Mayang Village, Xicheng Township of Youxi County. Experts selected out 6 patches of typical fields for yield weighing. After drying and blowing, the per mu rice yield of these patches reached 928.3 kg.
China’s World Advanced Water Treatment Technology
Researchers of the Northwest Institute of Electric Power Experiments, based on 2-decade painstaking research efforts, have worked out high flow dual-chamber water treatment equipment. The new system has overcome numerous defects existed in the current dual-deck or dual-chamber water treatment technology in the world.
Researchers developed a dual-chamber ion water treatment facility in 1980. The continuous improvements have led to the birth of the current new water treatment equipment, with a patent granted on December 1999. The papers reporting the dual-chamber water treatment equipment was collected respectively by US based SCI and EI.
The socalled dual-chamber or dual-deck system is a piece of water treatment equipment, able to turn on or turn off, or adjust output at will, under a simple operational procedure. The advanced technology loosens the restrictions on water suspension matters, and resin can extend its life by 1-3 years. With an operational flow as fast as 40m per hour, the new technology can reduce the required investment by 50%, or a saved annual operation cost by about 30%, when compared with anti-infiltration processing technology. In addition, the new system is able to save water resources by a large margin.
The new system has found applications in numerous economic sectors, including power generation, chemistry, petroleum, metallurgy, iron and steel, light industry, textile among others. There are over a thousand dual-chamber water treatment facilities that are currently running in China, creating fine socioeconomic benefits.
High Performance IPv6 Wireless/Mobile Router
A BJTUIPv6 wireless/mobile router, jointly developed by an IP network lab affiliated to the Beifang Jiaotong University and Beijing Jiaxun Feihong Co., presents a new generation network router and security system, able to meet varieties of telecommunication needs at any time, in any places and with anyone. The new technology, able to create a local network environment in a fast manner, can be easily connected to Internet. Experts explain that the IPv6 system can be a direct substitute for older systems, needing no upgrading, and thus saving huge upgrading investment.
At the same time, Jiaxun is collaborating with a military information engineering project, working on a high performance IPv6 router protocol software. The effort will lead to a proprietary IPv6 router protocol source software, which constitutes the core technology for the new generation network routing, management and security control. The new system is also designed with rich new functions, including static routing selection, automatic address configuration, security strategies, multiple broadcasting, QoS and other common command applications. It also supports dual protocols of IPv6/IPv4 and real time operational systems such as VxWorks and LINUX, able to run on high performance IPv6 router platform.
The newly developed systems have been used smoothly by a number of research institutes, universities and commercial networking operators.
China’s First 3G Mobile Chip
The Department of Information Products Management, a part of the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry, announced on August 22, 2004, that Zhanxun Communications (Shanghai), a company created by returned overseas Chinese students, has successfully developed the world’s first TD-SCDMA based 3G mobile phone chips. The proprietary chip marks China’s capability to manufacture key telecommunication parts at an internationally advanced level. The development has broken up the technical barriers that long imposed by foreign telecommunication giants to block China having its own mobile phone chip technologies.
According to a briefing, Zhanxun, in collaboration with Datang Mobiles, has worked out TD-SCDMA based 3G mobile phone chips. Zhanxun will soon embark on the development of 3G operational system, also in collaboration with Datang Mobiles and Ketai Century. The new system, compared with similar overseas products, presents an obvious advantages in size, integration, power consumption, and associated software, and is rated a 3G chip with the highest integration in the world.
High Tech Cradle for Microbes
Beijing Ludayuan S&T Co. Ltd. has recently developed a compact microbe cultivator of high efficiency and multiple functions. Together with supporting techniques for cultivation, the new cultivator is able to, using both microelectronic and microbe techniques, simplify the current complicated microbe cultivation processes, and make the whole cultivation process programmed. The new patented cultivator (patent number ZL02289164.1) , combining different microbe cultivation techniques, constitutes a practical versatile solution to many applications, including ecological breeding, planting, unhazardous treatment of animal wastes, organic fertilizer production, stalk storage, feed fermentation, etc. It can be used to breed and produce bio-additives needed by bio-pesticides, biofertilizer, and organic fertilizers. Users can produce varieties of bioagents at any time upon demands, maintaining the products’ activity and efficiency, reducing the costs for packaging, storing, shipping and distribution, and hence saving the application costs.
China’s First Body Cell Cow Cloning Center
Not long ago, the Chinese University of Agriculture inked an agreement with the Lutai Economic and Technological Development Zone, expecting to establish a body cell based cow embryo cloning center, the first of its kind in China. According to a briefing, the collaborating parties had jointly established a biological experiment base in 2001. A year later, China’s first cloned local cow species was born in the zone. Since then, 5 cows have been successively cloned out using body cells. This year the cloning farm produced 2 cows able to milk the newest pharmaceutical proteins in the world.
The cloning farm’s cow cloning survival rate sits on a leading position. The newly established body cell cow-cloning center will become a cow reproduction and bioengineering center serving China’s northern areas.
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